Spring Fields

Spring Fields / Oil on canvas / 18x24 / $650 plus shipping

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com if you'd like to own this painting! 

SO MUCH RAIN HAS FALLEN that now, even after a week of sun and wind, there are puddles in the fields, and in the lawns and throughout the low places in the woods. I love the way these bits of standing water pick up the colors of the sky, and put them where they should not be - a little bit of heaven in the middle of a field. 

I noticed the other day that around the puddles in some of the fields, grass or clover or whatever is planted there has started to green up, in a beautiful circle around the puddle. Water of life, certainly. 

I love painting fields, with the furrows leading somewhere - usually to a house or barn in the back of the field. But on a drive to Frederick, Maryland, this past weekend, I noticed fields with furrows leading off obliquely, and in patterns. 

Different, for me - and I like it. What do you think? 

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Coda

"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold; when it is summer in the light and winter in the shade." 

-  Charles Dickens, by way of my friend Lisa Zander

Slice of Light (After the Wedding)

     

Slice of Light

Oil on blackened canvas, 36x48

New version, above; origina version, below

I have brought this painting to a number of shows, and had it in a few galleries, and it has not sold. I think it's one of my best paintings ever - and it has a cool story. I go to breakfast most Thursdays with a group of  women who have come to the Eastern Shore from Away. We go to the Sage Diner, an Eastern Shore institution, have breakfast, talk, laugh, share. 

For years, we were helped by the same waitress, a gorgeous, tall (6-foot-plus, and always with her hair up, making her even taller) woman who's from the Shore. 

One day, she announced that she was going to marry her high-school sweetheart. They'd both been through marriages that hadn't worked, and had run into each other again and fallen in love. And all of us, the Ladies, were invited. 

After the wedding, which was in the afternoon, I walked out of the church and saw this scene across the street. A beautiful farm field with the last slanting light of afternoon cutting across it. 

I painted it initially (below) quite dark and light, and recently lightened and brightened it. What do you think? 

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Westport

I'LL BE IN Westport, CT, this weekend, at the Westport Fine Arts Festival. YES, it's going to be hot, so bring fluids, wear a hat, expect to sweat - but please come to the show if you can. I'm in Booth 45, on Main Street, near the intersection with Elm. I'll put a Facebook Live video up on Saturday, if I can! 

Meantime, above, a photo of my booth from the recent Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts in State College, PA. 

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Dog of the Day

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A Final Thought

"Art should be an oasis: a place or refuge from the hardness of life." 

- Fernando Botero

Three Mosaics

"Map of My Heart"

Oil on black canvas, 36x36

Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com for price and availability

I STUMBLED INTO "mosaic" painting early this year, and have spent a lot of time and energy on these paintings. A year later, I find myself loving - and questioning - them. 

What I love: 

• They call to me.  I find myself seeing the landscape in bits and pixels, focusing on how to build these daubed landscapes, being drawn more and more to views that can be painted in this way (it is not every landscape, I'm finding). 
• They contain some magic, in the making and in the viewing. I can look at one of these big pieces forever, and find myself drawn in by them, by the colors, the patterns, the repetition, the rhythm, the movement through the canvas. 

What I question: 

• It takes forever to make them. 
• It is physically difficult. My poor shoulder resents these paintings and the uncountable number of daubs and strokes required. 
• I have to ask high prices for them (see above!) 

And... in the end... a little voice sometimes says - "Just Paint." Quit finessing, quit this focus on method, quit daubing, just load up the knife, make long, loose, free strokes, Just Paint. 

This is a serious quandary, and I would love any feedback you'd like to give me. 

I have started a further experiment, with these two smaller pieces. They are looser, faster, less involved, less planned. The strokes are larger, the margins less fussy, the effect - I think - entirely different. What do you think? 

Autumn Hillside, 10x10, $150

September Song, 10x10, $150

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Dog of the Day

Saw this trio in Onancock last week. Ho ho ho! 

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A Final Thought

"What is art? Nature concentrated."

- Honore de Balzac

Early Morning Melody

Early Morning Melody

Oil on blackened, cradled beech panel, 16x16

At Center Framing & Art, West Hartford Center, CT

A few days ago, in a book called "The Secret Lives of Color," I encountered the idea that, in the past (and I'd add, in academia and serious intellectual artistic thought today), drawing - line, architecture, replication - were far more important than color. Drawing skills were what was valued, and I can see that when I think of the famous, pre-Impressionist paintings (that honestly - yes, I am a peasant! - mostly bore me).

When I read this, my entire painting life began to make sense to me, and I found my recent questions answered. I've often said that my paintings are all about color - and I have said that off-handedly. But truly and honestly, they are, and always have been, all about color, in a serious and fundamental manner.

Dropping the brush and taking up the knife was a vital step along this route. It allowed me to apply pure color to the canvas, while loosening my grip on line, drawing and detail.

All of this has helped me understand and accept the mosaics , which have worried me enormously of late. Now I see they are the next logical step in the exchange or abandonment of line for color. In large part, with these pieces, I am building the painting by using only the building blocks of color, light and shadow.

To some degree, this is what I've been doing all along - but the mosaics do it in an undisguised and raw way. They are harder to do than anything I've attempted so far. Next blog post, I'll write a little bit about why.

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Upcoming! 

The Wachapreague Volunteer Firemen's Carnival is on, Wednesday-Saturday, through July 7. The carnival supports the volunteer fire department, and is great fun! There are rides, games, food and music, on the carnival grounds, Atlantic Avenue, Wachapreague.

Our Fourth of July parade starts at 11:30 on the Fourth, on Main Street in Wachapreague. It's not a long parade, so don't be late! Amazing, spectacular, astonishing fireworks start at dusk on the Fourth. You can park in the park to watch. Donations are appreciated - the fireworks are put on by Rich Pulchaski, a local pyrotechnic genius, and he funds them pretty much by himself.

I'll be at two shows in July -

• the Wickford Fine Art Festival, Wickford, RI, July 7-8 and 
• the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, State College, PA, July 12-15

And that is almost all my shows for the summer, so if you want to see my new work, I hope you'll be able to come! 

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Dog of the Day

Met these two (and their service providers) in Onancock on Sunday. I've forgotten their names, but the one in the stroller is 15, I think! And the one walking is no spring chicken, either. 

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A Final Thought

"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge,

That myth is more potent than history,

That dreams are more powerful than facts,

That hope always triumphs over experience,

That laughter is the cure for grief.

And I believe that love is stronger than death."

- Robert Fulghum, 

via "The Painter's Keys," where you can subscribe to get an always thoughtful, usually fascinating and often freaskishly pertinent newsletter. For free. 

House in Accomack

House in Accomack

Oil on cradled beech board, 16x16 

Please click here to email me for price and availability

I stumbled onto what I am calling "mosaic painting" when I was working to figure out what to do at the very bottom of a giant painting I'd made earlier in the year for a window at Jerry's Artarama. 

I'd gotten to the bottom of the painting - painted the giant delphiniums and daisies and coneflowers - and I didn't know what to do. I didn't want just grass, or just dirt - I wanted some color down there. Some interest. Some action.

I'd been on a pastels kick just before I made this behemoth, and I decided to try using the oil paints in the way I'd been using pastels - putting down rough patches of color to suggest. I tried it and I liked it - and it occurred to me to make a painting using only that approach - and that's how the first of the mosaics came about. 

I'm working to learn the ins and outs of this mosaic painting, how to use color with this technique, how to get motion and distance and atmosphere into the painting, how to make it all work in a way that I like, and that I like doing. 

The biggest difference between the mosaics and my more regular style of painting is time. It takes me days and days and days to complete even a small mosaic. In the time it takes to make one of these, I can make three or even four "regular" paintings - if I work hard and quickly. 

So, while these are painstaking and time-consuming, I find them captivating and thrilling. I love looking at them. They shimmer, they change, they evoke, they evolve.

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"Couldn't Drag Me Away"

Gesso, acrylic, ink, powder and gold, silver and copper leaf on canvas, 36x48

Please click here to email me for price and availability

MEANTIME, and, I suspect, in response to the precision of the mosaics, I've been presented with these "wild" paintings - extremely fast, extremely loose multi-media pieces that just announced themselves one afternoon in April. 

Initially, the bifurcation bothered me, but I am learning to accept it and delight in it. 

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Newfoundland! 

THE TIMING is a little bit up in the air, but this summer (June-July or August-September), I am heading to Newfoundland to paint! 

It's a sponsored painting trip, meaning that you can buy a painting in advance, receive my sponsor-only travel- and painting blog while I'm on the road, and then, when I get home, choose your painting in the order in which you signed up. 

The trip will be somewhat limited, time-wise, so I am accepting only 12 sponsors. There are a few spots left, and one or more of them could be yours! It's $125 for a 10x10-inch painting, and $300 for a larger piece. 

In the spirit of full disclosure, I will also be making a painting trip to Utah, in the fall, so if you're interested in sponsorship but would prefer Utah, that's fine. 

For more on the Newfoundland trip, please click here to reach that page on my website, Jacobson Arts

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Workshop Coming Up

I'LL BE TEACHING a palette-knife painting workshop in Westerly, RI, on Wednesday, June 13, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.! It's at Avondale Arts, 95 Watch Hill Road, Westerly... The class goes from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. It's $95, limited to 12 people, and you must have at least some painting experience. Contact Avondale Arts for more info and to sign up. (http://www.avondalearts.com/)                                            Want me to do a workshop in your area? Please email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

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Dog of the Day

What a a face on this guy! I met him out in Arizona, and he was just as sweet as he looks. 

Want your pet to be the Dog of the Day? Send a jpg to me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com

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A Final Thought

"I make art. Sometimes I make true art, and sometimes it fills the empty places in my life. Some of them. Not all." 

- Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

The Pink Robe

The Pink Robe 

Oil on black canvas, 10x10, $125

Please click here to email me if you're interested in this painting, or stop by 

Seaside Antiques and Art, Main Street, Wachapreague, VA

It was a cool early morning in the spring, and I was heading out of town to a show. Don't remember which day, what show or anything... But a Main Street resident who still takes the paper had gone out to get it, wearing her robe, and it struck me as a painting and a story and a glimpse into life in a quiet little town. 

This is another of the paintings I've made for the 2017 Wachapreague calendar. It's $19, and you can get it at Seaside Antiques and Art, or from me, either by check or by going to the Jacobson Arts home page and clicking on the PayPal button there, under the photo of the calendar. 

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One from the Road

(I'm on the Big Skies Painting Trip)

In Breezewood, PA, Interstate 70 does a very strange thing. It comes to a complete stop! You're driving along, la-di-dah, at 70 mph, and then all of a sudden, you see signs saying "Expressway Ends." You get to a light, come to a complete stop, take a turn, and then you get on an entry ramp and get back on the highway. Bizarre. I would love to know what politics or persuasion or just exactly what conspired to make this happen! 

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Dog of the Day

It's Scout, our dogs' favorite dog-about-town. Scout takes Bill (seated, in rocking chair) for a walk around Wachapreague pretty much every day. Scout ambles along, making sure Bill gets his exercise ... and also making sure that our dogs get their daily dose of thrilling excitement and obscenely loud barking. She's a wiz at it, that's for sure! It's our dogs' favorite time of day! 

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A Final Thought

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost." 

- Martha Graham